


Glory In Her Own Right

by historia_vitae_magistras



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 15:36:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18524467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historia_vitae_magistras/pseuds/historia_vitae_magistras
Summary: Amelia holds all the cards. Ludwig holds the shovel. There are only ghosts to bury.





	Glory In Her Own Right

He buried his brother in the second winter after the war. 

Months before, Amelia had commanded that there be a gap in the schedule of the guards outside of his door. No one questioned her. There was no questioning her. That was power. Real power. It was as irresistible as it had been before the war. The temptation of power. He was weak. The party had promised him power and he’d fallen facefirst into hell. She promised power and he fell face first into the best feeling he could remember. Even if the real thing would never be his again, even if she would never be his, he could pretend she was. If only for a few hours. He'd been used to Ersatz everything for ages now. Why not this too? Her real wrath could very well mean the end of the world.

He wouldn’t look at himself either. Not when she was glory in her own right. A back that curved back and sent amber waves of grain tumbling down her shoulders. Too short to curtain over her breasts. What would he ever be next to her? Even now, Dresden groaned under the half-healed skin of his thigh. But what could it matter? When she rode and shuddered above him, never seeing him.

And then, one morning, instead of her silent disappearing into the dawn, she sat down. Back to him, she buttoned her dress and sat down on end of the cot, slipping into her heels. The sun rose, silver and over her golden skin and he wanted to kiss her. Such a normal, domestic thing it would be, fastening a button she'd missed. But he didn't dare touch her. 

The world outside his barred windows was as grey and as lifeless as he would be when she left. Now, watching her pin back her curls, he could pretend that he loved her. Her, rather than the glowing power of radiation and earth ending power in her eyes. He cherished the moment. 

Then she came to life again. 

“Get dressed,” She commanded. He obeyed, of course. He was never naked for long. His cell was as drafty as it came and even that was a sight better than sleeping in the morgue under the Berliner Dom. 

But then, she’d taken him outside the prison. Just let him walk right out in civilian clothes. He walks behind her as she nods off salutes. The way a consort walks behind a queen. But she lets him ride in the front seat, next to her and once they leave the city, he leans back in the seat. He can almost pretend its one of his daydreams from before the war. The sunlit fantasies where she had accepted his overtures at the Olympics. Where she joined him and he had wooed her with picnics on palace lawns under gentle summer suns. 

But it is winter and the fantasies are dead. And his capital is rubble when he opens his eyes again. Is Berlin the capital? Don’t you have to have a state to have a capital? He doesn’t know anymore. She makes those choices. She is, or her army at least, the state now.

But then a half an hour later, they’re south of the city, in his nearly untouched palace district of Potsdam. She parks in the long drive up to Sans Souci. The ground has frozen. A dusting of snow blasts around above the layers of ice. He doesn’t get a chance to ask what they’re doing here. Before he’s out of the car, she’s taken a box, one of the old Prussian footlockers from the truck of the car. This one is more familiar than his own clothes, emblazoned with a black eagle. 

She shoves it and a shovel into his hands. Her face is a thunderclap of disgust around her mouth with the words that come out of her next.

“You murdered him. You’ll bury what’s left of him.” 

He very nearly drops the box. Gilbert has been missing since the day he shoved Ludwig across the Elbe at gunpoint. He’d given Ludwig his last chance to live, to run to Amelia and pray for mercy. The words stick in his throat like his windpipe is a collapsed tunnel. He can't get them out. The hate in her eyes clears the way through. 

“You— You confirmed his death?” 

“I abolished the state of Prussia as of this morning.” She says. Ice punctures right through his chest. It's like nothing he's ever felt. But he hadn't felt the execution of the state that has made up most of his own since his birth. How could he have not felt that? He and Gilbert had shared Prussia and Germany. 

“What?” 

"The Prussian Free State is gone." 

"Why?" 

Her laugh comes like a shock of cold water. It's a tinny, cruel sound. "Oh, now you ask why! Now you have the courage to ask why!" 

She sounds a little unhinged. He doesn't understand. 

"You want to know why? Fine! Because if by some miracle he’s alive, Ivan has him. The bastard will try to use him as a counterpoint to you. An alternative to you. Gilbert died for the likes of you. I won’t let his last act be in vain. He deserves better than that, even if you wouldn't give him that much.” 

“Amelia—” 

“He’s dead, Ludwig. He died with something of him left. It’s better this way,” 

“I—” 

“His best king was building this place when we met. You will bury him here. And maybe now you’ll understand what you’ve lost. What you’ve cost me.” 

And then, he understands. What she sees when her eyes are screwed so tight and he is groaning broken, German-gravel English under her. 

His brother.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr here:
> 
> https://draw-a-circle-thats-the-foxhole.tumblr.com/
> 
> I post history and Hetalia and aesthetics.
> 
> Kudos, comments and critiques are life. Thank you for reading!


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